2010-11-30

Pat Sansone, from one of my favorite bands - The Autumn Defense, and some other band called Wilco, has written an article at Aquarium Drunkard about Dr. Land's masterpiece, the Polaroid SX-70. He talks about discovering the SX-70 camera, and falling in love with the colors. He also bemoans the death of SX-70 film in 2008, and how it forced him to grow as a photographer.

It's a nice read. I'm about the same age as Mr. Sansone, so I understand what he means about being from an "in-between generation," technology-wise.

PDN Pulse is reporting that things are looking worse for Tod Brody, the photographer that licensed the above image to Vampire Weekend for the cover of their Contra album. In case you've missed it, former model Ann Kirsten Kennis (pictured) sued Vampire Weekend, who in turn sued Brody, who in turn is hiding from Process Servers. Long ways to go still.

The more important question to me is, SX-70 or Type 88? I'm leaning towards SX-70 even though the bottom of the frame is cut off, just look at those colors.

This was in my Impossible Project spam a few days ago, and it looks like they're already sold out? The Limited Edition Polaroid 250. These are actually from LandCameras.com. They've been converted to rechargeable batteries and standard shoe-mount flash (included) by Cory Verellen.

In keeping with the Anton Corbijn theme, I ran across this trailer while I was looking for other Corbijn material. I was unaware of this film but I'd love to see it. Hey Netflix, how about getting on that?

2010-11-28

This will probably be a must-have if you're a Tom Waits fan. A planned poetry/photography book collaboration with Michael O'Brien. From the article;

There are no concrete details as to when the book will be published, but the project has reportedly been conceived as a modern version of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the famous collaboration between writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans, which documented the hardtack lives of dust bowl sharecroppers and was first published in 1941. Rather than Mid-Western farmers, however, Waits and O’Brien’s book should examine the lives of the homeless.

2010-11-25

Could this be the last new-in-box Polaroid 180? They went out of production in 1969, so it's quite possible. They're fantastic pack film cameras. I have one myself, albeit in considerably worse shape than this one. It's still possible to find a lightly used example with the full kit and case occasionally. I found my 360 at a thrift store in a case like this, with all the extras.

Bidding started on this one at $5 bucks and is already over $100 with more than 5 days to go. It'll be interesting to see what it fetches.

Update: $710. Which isn't cheap, but I honestly thought it would bring a little more.

2010-11-23

I'm a huge fan of all things Polaroid, and especially of the man that invented the instant film process, among many, many other things - Edwin H. Land. There's a very nice little article at the Signal vs. Noise blog at 37signals that gives a brief history of Dr. Land and Polaroid. It also relates an anecdote about a fateful meeting Steve Jobs had with Land shortly before he was ousted from Apple in 1985, just as Land had been at Polaroid a few years earlier.

There are links out to a couple of other interesting, related articles as well, and some insider posts in the comments.

2010-11-21

There are lots of fashion blogs, but my favorite is easily Fashion Gone Rogue. The photography is consistently high quality and always attributed, the updates are frequent, and you're always informed if there's nudity after the jump - in case you're surfing on the office PC.

My only complaint, and I know this is up to the contributors, is that for gearheads it would be nice if more of the photos had EXIF data. Most of them have it stripped out, or they're tearsheets. But, if you just want to look at a constant stream of excellent fashion images, you can't do much better.

sooner or later celly phones will take the shape of brain implants which will include all the regular features of a celly phone and then some. this flickr stream "cellybrain" is an attempt make those technology companies hurry up by maxing out the features of celly phones and letting them know we need implants and we need them now.

"cellybrain" is a mission started by hamburger eyes photo magazine. "cellybrain" is a collection of celly phone photos from different celly phone photographers from all over the entire planet on a daily basis.

2010-11-20

I've been thinking a lot lately about upgrading my D1x, which is getting pretty long in the tooth. I'm not in a huge rush, so I'm taking my time and enjoying the thought process. My gut reaction is a D700. I get to use one occasionally at work and really like it, but there are other considerations, like video and lens choices.

So I've been trying to make a list of pros and cons to help with the decision, and I've pretty much narrowed it down to three options. Here's what I have so far. I'll start with my current gear.

Marina Cashdan at The Huffington Post recently interviewed Bruce Weber. It's mostly about his upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami "Haiti/Little Haiti," which is a long-term project he's been working on about the Haitian community in Miami. Lots of nice photos with the article, and a few other interesting tidbits, like this;

Jessica Lange takes really great photographs, and Jessica and I were talking about [shooting on film] and she said something really great, she said, 'You know, the great thing about using film is it can be a more intimate experience.' It's just because you're maybe not shooting as fast ... It's also easier to mess up, which is good, because then you can have a mistake which surprises you and maybe makes you think about something else.

2010-11-15

I was going through some things in storage recently, and found a few boxes of photography-related stuff I thought I'd lost in Katrina. Some cool old cameras, a bunch of old prints and negatives, and even some film.

Some of these were taken on location, and some in my very short-lived studio. All were taken with a Pentax ME Super, and an SMC-M 50mm f/1.4. All shot on Ilford XP2, which I used often in those days, when I didn't have time for hand processing Tri-X.

Nick points out that the 645D inherits some of the modern DSLR handling characteristics from the Pentax K-7/K-5. I think I've read similar statements over on the Pentax forums. But I noticed, from the pictures accompanying the review, that the top panel is also a bit reminiscent of the legendary Pentax MZ-S, with it's slanted control panel.

2010-11-04

Here's another item that isn't very common on the used market, the Ricoh GR 21mm 3.5 lens. It's the LTM version of the lens from their GR21 point and shoot camera. Ricoh also made a Leica mount version of the 28mm 2.8 lens from the GR1, but I imagine the production on the 21mm version was pretty low. These came with a matching viewfinder and hood, which are included with this one.

It's very cool, and it's rare, but it's also $1,735.00. That's a lot cheaper than a new Elmarit-M, but you could buy 4 Voigtlander Color-Skopars for that price. And the Voigtlander comes with a viewfinder also.

You don't see one of these for sale very often. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a black Minolta TC-1. I'd love to own it, but at $1,145.00 Buy It Now it's a little too rich for me. For that price you also get the leather case, a battery and free shipping. According to the ad the black color is for the 70th Anniversary Edition.